


gave my heart back to the galaxies

by cynical_optimist



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Friendship, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9517265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: “If-- if they're connected,” Juno continues, “It might help to work together. It would give you another vantage point. What d’you say, Nureyev?"Nureyev considers, then nods. “Alright, detective,” he replies, and Juno realises he hasn’t called him by his given name since he woke up. “For old times’ sake.”-Juno searches for a missing person and finds a lot more in the process.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [niuniujiaojiao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niuniujiaojiao/gifts).



> To my dearest daughter Crystal. I hope you enjoy all the angst; your requests are in later chapters. The happiest of birthdays to you (despite this fic) ❤.
> 
> All the thanks to [typehere452](http://typehere452.tumblr.com/), [Sarah](douchenuts.tumblr.com), and Rachel for your help and encouragement with this. The fic title is from "Come Home" by Cloud Cult, and the chapter title is from "Pause" by Katie Kim, both found in the accompanying playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/lydia_knife/playlist/3tBFTrGFeH8J2gTpV7fU3N).
> 
> Additional warnings for this chapter include an assassination attempt and a hospital.

“I’m just saying, Mr Steel,” Rita says through Juno’s comm as he makes his way out of Oldtown, drawing his jacket tighter around himself. “You promised me you weren’t gonna take any more cases this month, then you promised this would be a breeze, now you’re saying it’ll be over tomorrow…”

“Yeah, well, I'm sorry you won't be getting the time off you thought you would,” he grits out. “I'm a private eye, Rita, this is my job.”

“Well, you were  _ supposed _ to take a week off.”

“You were the one who booked the appointment,” he reminds her, turning left and taking an old shortcut through an alley.

Rita splutters. “She was very demanding over the phone! I thought you could, you know, let her down easy…”

“Look, if my plan pans out, the case’ll be closed within twelve hours.” He scowls at the path ahead of him, then makes another turn. It’s been years since he last came this way, but at least it’s better than the sewers, and fast enough to get him out of Oldtown before the new curfew.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we suspect foul play, Rita.” It’s getting dark, but a glance at his watch tells him he still has about an hour. “But it’s not likely.”

Rita huffs. “I still don’t like it, Mr Steel.”

“I don’t pay you to like it, Rita, I pay you to be my secretary,” he snaps. Honestly, he should be paying her for a fair bit more than that, but private investigating isn’t exactly the most lucrative business in Hyperion City.

“Fine,” Rita says, after a short pause. He’ll have to apologise later, he knows, but he doesn’t need a goddamned babysitter. “This is the last one, though. You’re going to take an actual break once it’s solved; I know you’ve been sleeping in the office. Don’t even try to make excuses.”

Juno should have known not to leave his toothpaste lying around. “Maybe I should start paying you for detecting,” he says, and Rita gasps.

“Don’t even joke, Mr Steel! Imagine how many streams I’d miss, being away from my desk all the time.”

“Because watching streams is exactly what I pay you for,” he says, but there’s a warmth in his chest that definitely has nothing to do with the familiar streets he’s winding through. “I’m almost out of Oldtown, now.”

“Well, you have ten minutes before curfew, so you might want to hurry.”

“Ten minutes? I had an hour just a few--”

“They lowered it again this afternoon. I would have told you earlier, but you were all busy brooding outside someone’s apartment.”

“I was--Rita, it was a stake-out!” Juno barks. “You make it sound like I’m a stalker.” He picks up speed, the effort stretching over his lungs, but there’s no way he’s going to be stuck in Oldtown after curfew, not with the new security measures in place.

“Well you are, aren’t you? Professional stalker-- maybe we should start putting that on the cards instead.”

“Rita, please. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Her sass catches him off-guard, sometimes--it’s difficult to tell whether she’s being deadpan or oblivious.

“Can’t wait for a holiday!” she says, and hangs up.

Juno closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head, then redoubles his efforts. He'll be able to call a cab just as soon as he gets past the border.

When he finally does, his chest is aching and his breaths are coming short and fast, but he isn't stopped by a patrol. He pulls out his comm, looking up for a moment at the buildings around him. The difference between Oldtown and the rest of Hyperion City has always been stark, but he's never been so grateful to be out of there as he is now. The cameras lining the edges of every building there aren't new, but the lasers? Juno’s never seen anything like it, not in his own memories.

He looks away, calls a cab. It's not his business what sort of security measures the government puts in, no matter what the statistics coming out in the wake of them say. Hell, if he gets this case wrapped up tomorrow he won't even have to look at Oldtown unless he's feeling particularly like torturing himself. Which is more often than not these days, but still.

He considers starting to walk as he waits for the cab, but he’d half expect the driver to charge him double for the change in location, at this point. Instead, he shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, hating and loving how the cold cuts to his bones.

He looks around, taking in the slowly fading light. That's when he sees, just as he turns his head to the right, a shadow. It’s not so much the shadow that disturbs him as the realisation that he doesn’t know how long it’s been there, doesn’t know if it’s another passer-by on the street or someone who’s been following him since Oldtown. Of all he’s lost with the use of only one eye, peripheral vision has to be one of the most damning.

Juno very carefully doesn’t make any sudden movements, just starts walking in the direction of his apartment. Who gives a shit about raised prices when he’s very likely got a tail? The shadow follows, and he adjusts his blaster on his belt as subtly as he can.

If he were further away from Oldtown, maybe, a fight would kick up enough fuss to have the police called, but no one’s been very sympathetic to those from inside lately. Not openly, anyway. Taking this case was probably not a good idea, he realises, as the person steps into the light, form solidifying into a tall woman in dark clothing, weaponry glinting at her sides. He doesn’t recognise her, which means she’s likely a hitman, which means he could have pissed any number of people off. It’s not as if he’s unused to receiving death threats.

He has a niggling feeling that it’s this case, though, the same niggling feeling that had him venturing into Oldtown today rather than just getting Rita to track cred payments across the galaxy. He picks up speed, though, as the woman grows closer, breaking into a run he knows he’ll regret later. Goddamn, he should start doing cardio if this is how half his cases are going to turn out.

She starts running, too, and it’s just his luck that she’s faster than him and gaining every moment. Juno ducks down a side street, pulling out his blaster. There goes any chance of actually catching that cab.

He turns left, then right, keeps on running and turning until he’s not sure where he is. He’s going to need Rita’s help to get home, probably; she’ll probably shout at him for endangering his life again. To be fair, a twilight shoot-out wasn’t exactly what he had planned for his evening.

Before he knows it, he’s reached a dead end, nothing but disposal units and tightly locked doors around him. When he turns back the way he came, his pursuer is already there, barely a hair out of place, gun drawn.

“You wouldn’t happen... to have chased me down... for a friendly chat, would you?” Juno asks, between deep, gulping breaths, setting his blaster past stun, just in case.

She snorts, stepping forward, every inch of her sharp and deadly. “She told me you wouldn’t be a difficult kill, detective.”

“She? Look, I’m not sure who I’ve pissed off this time, but--”

A blaster shot buzzes past his ear and crashes into a wall behind him. He winces.

“It’s a practice of mine to give my targets a warning before I kill them,” the assassin says. “That was yours.”

Juno aims for the chest, fires.

If it had been half a year earlier, he would have been out of that alleyway in minutes. It’s an easy shot, one he could have made in his sleep, had made a thousand times before. There’s no tremble in his hands as he fires, no time for the assassin to move.

He hits her in the arm. Not too bad, considering.

“Shit,” she snarls, dropping the blaster. “A painful death it is, then.”

“Have any of your victims ever told you you sound like a bad stream villain?” Juno asks, as he fires again and misses entirely. She stalks forward, pulling a plasma blade from her belt.

“Not many of them have had the chance to,” she answers, and her throwing skills are a lot better than Juno’s ever were--he can’t keep a grip on his blaster as he clutches at his shoulder, the shock of it enough to send him reeling backward. She produces another plasma blade just as quickly, and Juno can’t think of another option, can’t think of a way out of this.

He has no backup, no one around to hear, no one that would even care besides Rita. Sasha and Mick would mourn, maybe, but they both have busy lives. Anyone else--well, Juno pushed anyone else that might care very far away.

At least his death won’t inconvenience too many people, then.

Juno stumbles back further, straight into a disposal unit. It tips, clattering loudly, but Juno thinks that maybe the beating of his heart is louder in his ears, reducing everything else to a wordless rush. The pain is starting to set in, he thinks. It starts as a dull throb, then spreads into something white-hot, clawing at his arm and up his neck.

It’s funny, in a way, that he almost went out in a blaze of glory twice this year, heroic sacrifices for the greater good, and this is how he’ll die--a dead end somewhere in the depths of Hyperion City, by an assassin hired by someone he likely hasn’t even caught. Inglorious, just like his life. At least  _ that’s _ somewhat poetic.

The assassin leans over him as he scrambles back, pulls the blade out of his shoulder messily. He bites his lip, groans through the pain.

“Could you at least tell me who you work for?” he grunts, as his back hits a closed door behind him. “Like, is it this case? Or someone I’ve pissed off before?”

“Sure would suck to die without having solved that one particular mystery,” she says, unsympathetic. “Unfortunately, I have another appointment after this, so I don’t have the time to stay and chat.”

Juno wants to point out that it would have been faster to tell him the name than to say that, but his head is going light from blood loss and he’s already pissed his attacker off enough. “Feel free to leave early,” he says instead. “I’m happy to finish up here myself.” He’s pretty sure the last few words come out too garbled to understand, but he’s in pain, damn it, and losing blood fast, and he’s pretty sure his vision isn’t supposed to do that no matter how many eyes he has.

The door behind him disappears suddenly, and he tumbles backward, landing directly on his injured shoulder, which is just his luck, really.

“Oh my god,” his apparent rescuer--or the assassin’s next victim-- says, and he stares up at them, blinking, uncomprehending. This is bad. He should get them--inside. Away. Not here, in the line of fire.

He’s finding it more difficult to move with every moment that passes.

His brain feels heavy, sluggish, the journey from one thought to the next like--he doesn’t know what it’s like, can’t think of a metaphor, can’t think. Like he’s dying, then.

Juno  _ really _ should not have taken this case. He should have listened to Rita and spent a week holed up in his apartment, trying his best to ignore the news streams. He should have turned Claramonde Stone away the moment she turned up at the office looking for a wife that had most likely abandoned her anyway.

There are so many things he should have done, so many goodbyes he should have said.

“All the planets and the  _ stars _ !” his rescuer exclaims, and hands press at his shoulder, comforting and damning all at once. “Mom--Mom, comm the ambulance!”

“‘M’fine,” Juno mutters as his vision fades totally to black, and the pain recedes until all he feels is unfamiliar, blessed peace.

 

The worst part about being mortally wounded, Juno decides in the slurred unreality between consciousness and not, is the hallucinations.

All it is at first is flashes of bright light, raised voices blurring together and repeating most likely vital information, hands and movement and pain and numbness. Long periods of darkness, brief bursts of colour.

He floats for a while, fades in and out of awareness to the sounds around him.

Then, smoothing back his hair with gentle, steady fingers -- “Oh, Juno, you  _ idiot _ .” Another brush along his forehead, a thumb on his cheek, an intoxicating, unforgettable scent, and darkness once more.

Rita shouting in the background, muffled but clear -- “He ain’t got a family, doc, so you let me in or so help me  _ god _ \--” -- a quiet whisper, trembling, later. “If I’m missing book club to watch you die, Mr Steel, I’ll…” Voice breaking, fading. “Please wake up, boss. I’m sorry for yelling at you, honest, I am.”

The first time he does wake, all he can see is the bleach-white ceiling of the hospital. Juno immediately wishes for the consuming darkness again, but it doesn’t come. He scowls, the motion causing his face to ache--had he even hurt his face in any way?--and turns his head to the right, then the left. He blinks, waits for what he sees to solidify into something he can comprehend. At his side, sprawled in one of the frankly uncomfortable hospital seats, is Rita, fast asleep.

On the tails of the rush of affection he feels for her comes a familiar stab of guilt. How long has she been there, waiting for him to wake up? Her dress is crinkled, usually pristine eyeliner smudged and smeared across her cheeks.

Keeping his right arm pressed to his stomach, Juno struggles into a sitting position. He stares at the mass of tubes connected to his wrists, calculates how best to take them out. The sooner he’s out of the hospital, the better. He shifts his shoulder, and despite the cocktail of pain medications they’ve most likely got him on, agony shoots through his arm.

Rita jolts upright at his gasp, flailing and nearly falling of the chair. “Boss?” she says, voice slurred with sleep, rubbing at her eyes. She yawns, then-- “Boss! You’re awake!”

“Rita,” Juno greets, very carefully not moving his shoulder at all. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where to get more pain meds, would you?”

Rita turns away from him, wide eyed. “Doctor!” she demands. “Hey, we need a doctor in here!”

Juno leans back against the headboard. It feels like all of him is throbbing, like he’s just one massive wound barely held together by stitches and bandages, waiting to open, straining at the seams. “Rita,” he says. “Rita, I’m fine. It’s okay. I don’t need--”

“We’re having a  _ discussion  _ after this,” she says as a doctor walks in, and Juno is sure that if she wasn’t sitting she would be stamping her foot. “Ooh, Mr Steel, you promised!” She sounds like a pouting teen, but Juno can hear the real fear in her voice, the closely averted sorrow. He looks again at the dried smudges on her cheeks, swallows.

“It wasn’t as if I just walked up to the assassin and told her to have at me!” Juno protests, waving away the doctor as he comes close. “Or just laid down quietly while she stabbed me in the fucking shoulder!”

“Mr Steel,” the doctor says. “Can you please hold still.”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” he repeats. “Thank you for saving my life, send me the bill, my secretary will tell you where to find me.”

“Hold still, please.”

“I don’t need medical attention.”

“If you don’t cooperate, I have the right to sedate you,” the doctor says, and Juno scowls.

“No you don’t.”

A raised eyebrow. “Try me.”

Scowl deepening, Juno turns back to Rita as the doctor begins to examine his shoulder. “I need to meet up with Mrs Stone as soon as possible,” he says. “Can you--?”

Rita nods. “I’ll set up a meeting to let her know you’re dropping the case the moment you’re out of the hospital.”

“Great, schedule it for a few hours from now, then. And it’s not to drop the case.”

Rita’s face contorts. “You can’t work with your shoulder like this!”

“I’ve worked harder cases with worse,” Juno replies. “Besides, we still haven’t found Andromeda.”

“If you don’t mind the intrusion, I don’t think that’s the healthiest yardstick to go by,” the doctor says, pressing a little harder at the wound than has to be necessary.

“I do mind,” Juno says, petulant, as Rita nods earnestly in agreement.

“I saw this soap stream once, where a guy got stabbed like you did and pretended it didn’t happen,” she says. “And then it got infected and he  _ died _ and he never got to meet his mother and Frannie and I were absolutely  _ bawling _ . I don’t--” Her eyes go wide and watery, and her voice rises in pitch. “I don’t want you to  _ die _ , Mr Steel! Oh god please, please,  _ please _ don’t die!”

“I’m not--Rita, please don’t cry, I’m not going to die.”

She stops wailing, sniffles. “You’re going to take care of yourself, then?”

“I always take care of myself; I’m a goddamned adult,” he replies, ignoring the snort from the doctor. He  _ is _ ; he’s survived master thieves and impenetrable prisons and ancient martian artifacts. He can survive himself.

“Liar,” Rita retorts. “ _ You _ sleep at the office and try to sneak out of the hospital early. Which is  _ not _ taking care of yourself, boss.”

Juno blinks. “That’s not--” His mind feels fuzzy again, and he looks up to see the doctor adjusting whatever drugs are being pumped into his body. “Goddamn, are you  _ sedating me _ ?”

“You heard your friend,” the doctor says. “Sneaking out of the hospital is a very unhealthy practice, Mr Steel. And you need your rest.”

“This can’t be legal.”

“You’re a severely injured patient in a great amount of pain. Of course it’s legal, and your friend will back me up.”

Rita nods again, the traitor.

“I’m gonna--” Juno mutters, before the darkness he’d been longing for just earlier rises up to meet him again, and everything else is gone.

 

The next thing he hears is Rita munching on her lunch. He opens his eye, looks over to her sitting with her feet propped up in another chair, enjoying a sandwich of some sort. He would kill for a sandwich, probably.

“Did the doctor have to do that?” he groans, not even bothering to shift into a more upright position this time.

Rita starts but doesn’t stop eating. “Mh-hm,” she nods, eyes serious. She swallows. “You were gonna be a danger to yourself.”

“I was going to leave this blasted hospital,” he defends.

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

Juno shifts, groans. “Seriously, Rita. I just want to get back to the office and back to the case.”

“Well,  _ I’m _ not helping you out,” Rita says, crossing her ankles and taking another bite.

As much as he hates it, Juno is going to need another person to get out. “Please?”

She shakes her head, resolute, chews and swallows again. “You’re staying right here, Mr Steel.”

“Rita.”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. You ain’t convincing me.”

“I’ll double your breaks,” he negotiates.

Rita considers for a moment, looking tempted, then frowns. “But boss, I won’t get any breaks if you’re dead.”

“I’m not dying.”

“You almost did, though!” Rita argues. “You were so close, and--I thought I was gonna lose you, and--” Tears pool in her eyes and her breath stutters, and he can’t bear to look at her.

Juno swallows, looks back up at the glaringly white ceiling. “I’m sorry,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Rita hiccups. “Please don’t nearly die again, Mr Steel.”

“Okay,” Juno says, even though he knows he’s lying, knows that somehow, something is going to do away with him, whether that be this assassin or another or his own sheer stupidity. Rita knows that already, though, and this small moment of comfort is worth so much more than the truth of the future. “Okay, Rita, I won’t.”

She sniffles, then hiccups again. “Good.”

Juno relaxes into the pillow, taking a deep breath. He hasn’t been to a hospital since he lost his eye; every injury since then has been small enough to treat on its own. Addled by pain and drugs as he is, the incidents start to blur in his mind; he could swear that he remembers Nureyev being in here earlier, can just smell his cologne if he concentrates.

Wishful thinking, of course; Nureyev left Mars six months ago and hasn’t been in contact since. Of course his mind would conjure up his rawest regret when he’s too weak to put up a fight. It’s just his luck, really.

For a few long moments, Juno and Rita sit in relative silence, then she finishes her sandwich and begins to talk, a little quieter than she usually does, about whatever comes to mind. The weather, the newest stream, Frannie, the friends she’s already managed to make at the hospital in the last--

“Rita,” Juno asks. “How long have I been in the hospital?”

She stills, then shrugs. “Oh, a few days, y’know,” she answers. 

A few days? Juno really does need to go--he has to continue with the case, track down his attacker, maybe send a thank you card to the person dumb enough to open their door while he was leaning on it.

“Oh,” he says, and that’s enough signal for Rita to carry on, the sound of her voice filling the small room just like it does the office, and despite himself, Juno feels a little comforted by it.

He’s still starving, though.

“Hey,” he interrupts, after a few more minutes. “Is there any food around here?”

“Oh!” Rita says. “Yeah, I got you a sandwich, but then I ate it.”

“Wow, thanks,” Juno snorts, the laughter making his shoulder ache.

“I can go get you another?” she offers. “I’ll get myself one, too, so I don’t eat it.”

“Sure,” he says, “that would be great.”

She nods, brushing crumbs off her skirt as she stands. “You better not get up to any shenanigans while I’m gone, boss.”

“ _ I’m _ the one getting into shenanigans?”

“Well, you’re the one in the hospital bed,” she points out, and leaves before he can find a suitable comeback. “Back in a few!”

Juno shakes his head, trying not to laugh. He does shift, this time, forcing himself upright, wincing through the resulting pain. Still, it’s better than staring at the roof while he waits for Rita to come back. Anything is better than staring at the roof, honestly.

He blinks slowly, leaning his head against the cool wall. So, an assassination attempt. That’s certainly something to mull over. He doesn’t think he’s pissed anyone off other than half the most powerful people in the galaxy.

He can rule the Kanagawas out, though, and the Triad; it was too messy and not obvious enough, respectively. If Min had wanted him dead, he wouldn’t have known a thing. If it had been the Triad, he would have been taken in. So that just leaves half the elite in the galaxy. Wonderful.

Given the timing, though, it’s likely to have something to do with this case: Andromeda Stone, twenty-nine, heavily involved in the Alliance for Oldtown, missing without a note or any sign of foul play. He’d gone down to Oldtown to check on the AFO, just in case, but they seemed to be hardly missing her in the chaos of organising protests and events and anything to change the recent security upgrades the government had put in place.

If someone powerful wants her to stay missing, and is willing to kill for it, then it’s likely to do with that. That means more visits to Oldtown, this time with a target on his back and a bum arm. Again, wonderful. He’s going to have to figure something out, and soon.

Rita is probably right about pulling out of the case, but they’ve made it personal, now, and he can’t just drop it. He’s not certain Claramonde would let him, anyway. She has hired him to find her wife, after all, not give up at the slightest inconvenience to his person.

It’s been days since he was out there; he needs to leave, and soon. Rita won’t let him, once she gets back, and neither will any of the medical staff; he’s just going to have to handle this on his own, no matter how unsteady his legs are going to be.

Juno grabs at the tangle of tubes on his arm, prepared to yank them and their needles out. It will probably hurt, but not as much as other things he’s done in his life. He braces, takes a deep breath.

“You know, detective,” says a smooth voice at the door, so familiar it sends chills up his spine. “As a recently registered nurse, I can’t recommend that course of action.”

Juno blinks, swallows, doesn’t dare look up. “Recently registered?” he asks. “Is this through legitimate means? Can a patient trust you to take care of them?”

Nureyev’s voice grows closer as he approaches, steps echoing in time with Juno’s heart. “I assure you, you’re perfectly safe in my hands.”

Juno takes a deep breath, then looks. Nureyev doesn’t look a moment older than the last time Juno saw him, somehow looking classier than Juno could ever hope to be in a wrinkled pair of scrubs. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he turns his attention instead to the lanyard around his neck.

“Dale Lime?” he snorts, before he can stop himself. “Seriously?”

Nureyev shrugs. “Lime is a perfectly capable nurse, a little on the flirty side, just trying to fit into a new working environment.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Juno looks up at Nureyev again, expects to see--well, he’s not certain what he expects to see anymore. The open trust that had somehow guided and characterised their relationship? Honesty?

It is not the face of Peter Nureyev that he sees. This is Dale Lime and Rex Glass and Duke Rose and every other role that Nureyev has ever played, a smile just this side of genuine sitting practiced on his lips, face open like curtains on tinted glass. This is a Peter Nureyev that was never in love with Juno Steel, that was never left to wake up alone in a hotel in Hyperion city. This is a Peter Nureyev that Juno doesn’t know.

The fact that this is who Nureyev is choosing to be, even as he stands by Juno’s bedside in a city he promised never to return to, hurts more than he’d like to admit. Not as much as the literal stab wound, granted, but, Juno’s never claimed to be quite so poetic.

“I do have a legitimate reason for being on Mars,” Nureyev says after a long moment, glancing away.

“Do you ever have a legitimate reason for anything?” Juno asks, and Nureyev snorts.

“Occasionally, when the opportunity strikes. The point is, detective, I didn’t come for you, I promise.”

That stings, more that he would like to admit, and Juno doesn’t mention the memory from earlier--the moment that could have been a dream or anything else, the tender brush of Nureyev’s fingers. He doesn’t think it’s his right.

“What are you here for, then?” he asks instead, and the visible hesitation in Nureyev’s answering look brings back every bit of the regret and self-loathing he’s stored away in the last few months. He deserves it, he reminds himself, deserves every scrap of hatred either of them can scrounge up. Even if he doesn’t know what he’d do with himself if Nureyev started hating him.

“Where I came from,” he answers at last. “Brahma. There was a device. A security policy, if you will. Many people died for no crime at all but walking into the wrong areas at the wrong times. They called it--”

“I saw it in your head,” Juno says. “During the-- with Miasma. When you asked me to.”

“Ah,” Nureyev nods. “Well, you’re the detective here. What do you think I’m doing here?”

“Looking to dismantle the system the way you dismantled the one on Brahma?” Juno guesses.

He shrugs. “I’m scoping out the situation first. This is the perfect cover; I can go anywhere I want under the guise of a medical professional, and no one will bat an eye.”

“Smart,” Juno says, as if that’s any surprise.

Nureyev nods again, curt and yet as graceful as ever. “I should go,” he says, then. “I have rounds, you know. I only meant to stop in for a moment.”

He turns to go, and Juno stares at the tense line of his shoulders, the way he holds himself up so carefully.

“Wait,” he pleads, the word leaving his throat before he gives it permission to do so. Nureyev doesn’t turn back, but he stops. “The case I’m working on--the reason I’m in here-- it’s connected to that, too.” He stops there, words cutting short in his mouth. He doesn’t know how to phrase the next part, doesn’t know if he wants to.

Nureyev sighs at last and turns to look at him, and the misery in every line of his body threatens to tear Juno apart. He smiles, but it is not the loving, daring grin that he has grown used to; it is pale and bitter and weighed down with too much loss.

“Darling, foolhardy detective,” he says, and it’s the most vulnerable Juno has heard him since the morning he left.

“If-- if they’re connected,” he continues, “It might help to work together. It would give you another vantage point.”

“It’s a dangerous topic to look into,” Nureyev says.

Juno snorts, then immediately regrets it. “I hadn’t noticed,” he replies, dry. “It’s a missing persons case. Someone who was behind the scenes in the AFO. Her wife came to me about it last week.”

“If someone wanted to take her out of the protests, wouldn’t she be dead by now?”

“We’ll never know if we don’t look.”Juno looks at Nureyev for another long moment, feels an ache deep in his chest that has nothing to do with the stab wound. “What d’you say, Nureyev? Want to help me sneak out of the hospital before Rita comes back with my lunch?”

Nureyev considers, then nods. “Alright, detective,” he replies, and Juno realises he hasn’t called him by his given name since he woke up. “For old times’ sake.”

He reaches out to help Juno out of the bed, and though Juno knows that this is a business arrangement, knows that Nureyev will never let him quite so close again, there is a part of him that begins to hope, somewhere deep down, that he will see Nureyev’s smile again.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com) if you'd like to cry with me over assorted fandoms. Updates will come...at some point. Soon. Probably.


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